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Even in a joint world, different services have their own special utility at different points on the spectrum of crisis. For forward presence, no other defense asset can match the carrier’s record or its powerful and compelling presence. (Here, an F-14 Tomcat from VF-74 launches in a North Atlantic storm close aboard the frigate HMS Brave.)
During the past half century, the United States has led the world toward peace and prosperity through a network of alliances and a supporting policy of forward presence. This policy is equally important today, despite the end of the Cold War, but U.S. military force structure is declining to the point where forward presence may become too thin to be credible. Further reductions in active forces will seriously limit the nation’s ability to stay engaged overseas and thus will reduce our ability to influence faraway events affecting our vital interests.
Although they now center more on economic and social issues, U.S. vital interests still can be jeopardized by overseas threats. Alliances and relations with friendly nations are important, and international trade is absolutely critical to the U.S. economy. Energy security and narcotrafficking also demand our attention. Finally, we must keep a weather eye out for potential large-scale military threats around the world.
To safeguard our national interests, reinforce international alliances and friendships, and contain crises early, forward presence therefore remains a key pillar of the U.S. National Security Strategy. As land-based U.S. forces withdraw from many overseas bases, the Navy and Marine Corps are undertaking a relatively greater share of this forward-presence responsibility. Naval forces today are engaged around the world, in the best possible position to help establish and maintain regional stability. They can operate unobtrusively, over the horizon, or with great offensive power should circumstances so require. That power is discreet, surgical, and sustainable. This flexibility is crucial to our ability to respond to minor and major regional conflicts of the future.
The Defense Department’s Bottom-Up Review in 1993 recognized these “unique contributions” of naval forces and identified forward presence as an explicit mission area- More recently, the Navy completed a landmark study on naval forward presence.1 The study establishes direct links between overseas national interests, potential threats to those interests, related military objectives, and the forward-deployed naval forces and capabilities required to support those objectives. A common historical example has been the need for naval forces to conduct noncoin' batant evacuation operations on short notice, to protect the lives of Americans living overseas.
Forward-presence operations by U.S. naval forces also will have an effect on the way our military will fight a major conflict five or ten years from now. Port access, airfield availability, logistic support, and coalition forces all depend on regular interaction and evidence of commitment. A U.S.-based force structure that visits key areas only occasionally would be unable to build multinational coalitions that may be needed in the future.
. The fundamental purpose of naval forces is war fight- lng—to project power and support the unified commanders’ forces ashore. Sea control, antiair warfare, and a*l of the other “anti’s” are means to an end—and that end ls to apply power from the sea through tactical aviation, amphibious forces, and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Lower rur>gs on the ladder of sea power include noncombatant eyacuation operations, maritime interdiction or enforcement of other sanctions, and deterrence.
Any large-scale conflict will demand substantial forces from all the armed services. As we saw in Desert Storm, Joint forces, acting as an integrated team, are fundamental to success. No service can go it alone. Even in peace- Jme, naval forces will work for a joint-force commander. Nevertheless, we must recognize that forces from differ- em services will have their own special utility at differ- etlt points on the spectrum of crisis.
A B-2 on strip alert in the continental United States does not lend much to forward presence to promote regnal stability. Nor can B-2s or B-52s be used on a
continuing basis to lay the foundations for future coalitions. Furthermore, the number of bombs dropped simply does not apply in most military actions as a valid measure of effectiveness. To be sure, bombers have an important role in conflict, and they also contribute to deterrence, but their contribution to overseas presence is limited and to suggest that they compare to naval forces is nonsense. It has been proven nearly 80 times since the early 1970s that the carrier is the nation’s most useful asset for forward presence, deterrence, crisis response, and the early stages of conflict. By way of contrast, Air Force bombers have been used only five times in the same period. No other DoD asset can match the carrier’s record or provide that type of powerful and compelling presence—except possibly amphibious forces.
Joint Forces. . .Within Limits
Although naval forces are best equipped to carry out the forward-presence mission in much of the world, any
Proceedings / August 19^
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portion of the surge package could deploy and operate with forward-deployed naval forces if needed early in crises. Even if the surge does nol occur, there is value added through extensive joint training of Army* Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps units. They become familiar with joint forces air component commander doctrine, joint air operations including close air support, and a broad range of joint command, control, communications, and intelligence procedures.
Designed as they are for joint combat operations, adaptive joint force packages have less application in the day-to-day peacetime presence role. And because they do not create capability—only make existing capability more interop' erable—they are not a panacea. Beyond their naval components, adaptive joint force packages cannot sustain a visible presence in key regions of the world. Small detachments can deploy to certain locations and contribute to the presence mission, but larger combatant forces, such as a composite air wing or an Army battalion, need extensive logistical support to flow with the basic unit. The many hundreds of required lift sorties are not likely t° be available or affordable short of a genuine crisis.
While the new adaptive joint force packages—right, Army Rangers and Air Force helicopters on the deck of the USS George Washington (CVN-73) during a recent exercise—have application for combat operations, they are less relevant in the presence role where the mobility and sustainability of the aircraft carriers and amphibious forces rule.
large-scale crisis clearly will demand all the tools in the nation’s inventory.
Naval forces likely will be the first to respond, and our sister services will follow with heavier forces, as quickly as lift and sustainability permit. On whatever scale such joint deployment occurs, it is imperative that service capabilities mesh seamlessly, if possible.
The U.S. Atlantic Command is working hard with component commanders and the overseas commanders- in-chief to develop adaptive joint force packages able to hit the ground running at times of crisis. Joint training conducted during predeployment workups for the naval forces allows the entire package to meld into an integrated whole. Depending on lift and sustainability, the U.S.-based
On the other hand, aircraft carriers and amphibious forces have inherent mobility and sustainability. They are '^dependent of the sensitivities of nations with regard to basing rights, refueling rights, and myriad other considerations that bear on even the temporary shore basing of forces overseas. All our armed services are useful and they are complementary, but they have varying utility at different levels of crisis, and they are seldom interchangeable.
Jnterest-Based Force Structure
The demands on the Navy continue to grow in this post- '“°ld War world. U.N. embargoes around Haiti, in the Adriatic, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf currently are eing enforced. Naval forces contribute significantly to p e quality of deterrence and war fighting in the Western acific. We keep trade flowing around the world and help ||nsure a steady oil market.2 We contribute to the war on rugs and help build the framework for future coalitions. All the while, the Navy is undergoing drastic reductions. r°m 566 ships in 1988, there will be 387 ships in the U.S. avy at the end of this fiscal year, and that number will Hl'ntinue to be reduced until we reach and then pass through e Bottom-Up Review level of 346 ships in 1999—re- ik'lting *n fbe smallest Navy since the great Depression of e 1930s. The Navy is now planning on 331 ships in 1999,
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even that number still is under negotiation.
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The U.S. Navy in the year 2000 will consist of 12 (11 active and 1 reserve) aircraft carriers, approximately 114 major surface combatants, 55 nuclear-powered attack submarines, enough amphibious lift for two-and-one-half Marine expeditionary brigades, and their needed support ships. The Bottom-Up Review also recognized that the number of Navy ships, especially carriers, needed for the forward- presence mission may be greater than the number required to fight two nearly simultaneous major regional conflicts.
Fourteen carriers are needed to maintain near-continuous presence in the vital areas of the Western Pacific, Persian Gulf, and Mediterranean. With fewer carriers, we must gap their presence on occasion and incur a calculated risk regarding their availability. The same is true with amphibious forces and surface combatants. It also is true that naval forces can flow within and between theaters at the earliest indications of trouble. In the last two years, carriers have transited from the Mediterranean to the Central Command area—to the Red Sea and off Somalia—on several occasions. Unfortunately, the Mediterranean was then left without a carrier. We do maintain other naval forces on alert to move from the continental United States, but this requires time and yet another measure of risk.
Maintaining even the Bottom-Up Review force level will not be easy. Budgetary pressures likely will increase as the Cold War recedes into memory. To get the most from our shrinking budget, we must emphasize quality and efficiency in everything we do. At the same time, we must further reduce the infrastructure originally designed to support a much bigger Navy. Above all else, we must adjust budget priorities to preserve the force structure needed to carry out our national defense strategy.
Equally important, the Navy must continue to protect and nurture our most valuable resource, our people. Today’s sailors are superb professionals, smart and highly motivated. Without those outstanding Navy men and women and the families who support them, all the force structure in the world would do us little good. Even as the Navy becomes smaller, we must recruit, retain, promote, and support the enlisted and officer personnel the Navy needs today and 20 to 30 years from now.
The complex, demanding world of the future will be marked by crises and conflicts. U.S. forces will be involved in those affecting our vital interests. Naval forces engaged in presence operations and thereby available for timely crisis response provide the means for this nation to ensure the regional stability and economic activity so essential to our own security.
Is it affordable? Absolutely. The Department of the Navy’s budget—which sustains present Navy and Marine Corps force levels and builds ships, submarines, and aircraft for tomorrow—requires about 5% of the federal budget. That’s a smart investment for the U.S. taxpayer.
'RAdm. Philip Dur, USN, “Presence: Forward, Ready, Engaged,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, June 1994, pp. 41-44.
;Richard N. Cooper, “Oil, the Middle East, and the World Economy,” After the Storm: Lessons From the Gulf War, ed. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., and Roger K. Smith (New York: Madison Books, 1992), p. 158.
Admiral Mauz is Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet.